text:
The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC), headed by new RBI governor Urjit Patel, unanimously voted for a 25 basis point cut in RBI's key lending rate—the repo rate—to 6.25 percent, arguing that large underutilised capacities and good summer rains will likely keep inflation low in the near future.
The six-member panel, which brainstormed over two days, unanimously agreed that inflation was unlikely to gallop past the tolerance threshold of 6 percent in the next few months.
But the minutes of the meeting, which were released on Tuesday, were unclear by when the MPC expects the retail inflation rate to come down to 4 percent.
The RBI and the government have set a retail inflation target of 4 percent for the next five years with an upper tolerance level of 6 percent and lower limit of 2 percent.
On October 4, the RBI cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent, as the newly set-up panel felt that inflation levels were low enough to reduce loan rates.
"The persistence of core inflation remains a concern," Chetan Ghate, professor at Indian Statistical Institute, said in the MPC meeting.
'Core' (non-food, non-fuel) inflation, untamed, can be a cause for worry.
"With persistent slack in the economy evidenced by unutilised capacity over the past few years, corporate pricing power remains weak," Ghate said.
Pami Dua, Director, Delhi School of Economics, echoed similar views.
"The modest softening of inflation and inflation expectations seen in some of the surveys conducted by the Reserve Bank, along with lacklustre private investment spending and unused capacity, provides a window for a reduction in the policy rate," Dua said.
Ravindra H. Dholakia, Professor at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, was of the view that there was substantial under-utilisation of capacity in the system.
This, in turn, means there was no "major risk to inflation if the output gap closes fast", Dholakia said.
Michael Patra, RBI executive director, said that "several parts of the economy are languishing," but as agricultural activity, steel production, public investment in roads, railways and inland waterways and some services are "mending and coming together for a potential revival".
R Gandhi, RBI deputy governor, said that while the pace of growth is expected to gain gradual momentum, "the private investment cycle remains depressed and is yet to respond adequately to the improving consumption demand.
Recent data on production of capital goods, imports of capital goods and flow of credit to industry indicate the weak state of investment demand," Gandhi said.
RBI governor Urjit Patel said that lead indicators pointed to a subdued outlook, though gradually improving, is buffeted by "continuing low capacity utilisation in industry".
Under the new monetary policy framework, a six-member panel chaired by the RBI governor will decide on interest rates. The decision of the committee — three each nominated by the government and the central bank – will be binding. The governor cannot override the panel's decision by using a veto, but can cast a vote in case of a tie.
The October 4 policy was the first to be overseen by the MPC.
The RBI and the government have set a retail inflation target of 4 percent for the next five years with an upper tolerance level of 6 percent and lower limit of 2 percent. Inflation levels above 6 percent will mean the economy has hit a danger zone.
High inflation means prices are rapidly rising eroding people's buying power as it makes the rupee go less far. Conversely, very low inflation levels can be symptomatic of an economy-wide slide because of weak demand and muted investment activity.


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The Snow-covered Hill Quotes in The Giver
The The Giver quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Snow-covered Hill. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Houghton Mifflin edition of The Giver published in 2012.).
Chapter 13 Quotes
He wondered what lay in the far distance where he had never gone. The land didn't end beyond those nearby community. Were there hills Elsewhere? Were there vast wind-torn areas like the place he had seen in memory, the place where the elephants died?
Page Number and Citation:
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Chapter 14 Quotes
The sled hit a bump in the hill and Jonas was jarred loose and thrown violently into the air. He fell with his leg twisted under him, and could hear the crack of bone. His face scraped along jagged edges of ice… In his agony he perceived the world "fire" and felt flames licking at the torn bone and flesh.
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes
For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The Snow-covered Hill Symbol Timeline in The Giver
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Snow-covered Hill appears in The Giver. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11
...Receiver places his hands on Jonas's back and transmits the memory of sledding down a hill: Jonas does not just remember the activity, he feels the cold air and the snowflakes... (full context)
Chapter 12
That night Jonas dreams he is at the top of a snow-covered hill, needing to reach whatever is waiting at the bottom. The next morning, during dream-telling, he... (full context)
Chapter 23
When he reaches the top of the hill, Jonas recognizes it. He also sees a sled. Jonas and Gabriel ride the sled downhill.... (full context)

subset: commoncrawl


text: A huge library including study carrels and group- discussion tables are available. Sufficient number of books of relevant subjects, Islamic social and cultural books of local and international authors along with national & international journals are available in the library. The books and journals have been catalogued and arranged subject wise in cabinets. Library is headed by a qualified librarian, assisted by supporting staff. E-library facilities are also available in the main library


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Cut QualityThe ideal cut diamond is a very precise mathematical equation, where diamond proportions and angles are cut to optimize the diamond's superlative optical properties, in particular it's high refractive index and color dispersion, to create a diamond of unequaled beauty with perfect balance of brilliance and fire. In layman's terms, the diamond is cut to make it the most beautiful diamond so it retains its intrinsic value.
ColorG color diamonds are next to colorless. G color may be somewhat slightly noticeable when compared to diamonds of better grades, but this grade offers excellent value. G-color diamonds are the most rare of the near-colorless diamonds. Its extremely faint tint will only be noticeable to a trained gemologist.
ClarityDiamonds of SI2 clarity are grade two slightly included. Depending on the location, SI2 inclusions in these diamonds may be perceptible to the naked eye. Good color SI2 clarity diamonds are an attractive choice when working within a fixed budget without sacrificing beauty or value. These diamonds balance good clarity with exceptional price.


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Realty India 2012 is the biggest Indian property exhibition in Kuwait. It is an excellent venue to explore the huge potential of residential, commercial and hospitality properties in India. The event also offers prospective property buyers with the widest selection in range, price and locations across India. Besides, exhibitors (mostly real estate developers) can reach a large Indian community from different states in Kuwait, an appealing market with a huge buying potential.
In the expo, more than 70 leading builders will showcase over 200 projects from across India. Realty India 2012 will be presented by Indian media conglomerate The Times Group, in association with CREDAI Kochi, a regional member association of the apex industry body Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (CREDAI).
Date & Venue
This year, Realty India will be held at the Ramada Kuwait Hotel in Al Riggae, Kuwait from January 20-21. For both the days, the event will be open from 10.30 am to 8 pm.
The 2-day exhibition is being jointly organised by Times Events and Exhibitions and Mindspace Events & Exhibitions, in association with Response Events & Exhibitions, Kuwait.
Exhibitors' profile
The exhibitors' profile for Realty India 2012 has been fixed and it includes some of the biggest names in Indian realty such as IREO, Arista Group, Emaar MGF, Supertech, Nirmal Lifestyle, Indiabulls, Mantri Developers, Mohtisham, Land Trades, Connect Developers and Property Infra Tech, among others.
Visitors' profile
The visitors' profile for the event includes NRIs, HNIs, property investors, architects, interior designers, banks and financial institutions and general public.
For further information and registration queries, please contact:
Mindspace Events & Exhibitions
Contact person: Zia Sait
52, 1st Floor, Cubbon Road Cross, Off Infantry Road
Bangalore 560 001, India
Ph: +91 80 43585555 (11 Lines)/+91 9844094242


text:
Thank you. Your inquiry has been received.
Beautiful Desert, Mountain, and Lake Views
Spacious Trailer HOMES , price is for space rent plus some utilities
Perfect for that Single Person, but we have many couples as well
Come enjoy the desert life style, laid back and peaceful, with great views of the lake
Small single wide travel trailers are available to purchase , in nice friendly park.
No roommate needed here.
depending on Unit chosen, we have a few to choose from to Purchase for just a small monthly payment after a small down payment.
That is on top of space rent and utilities
Don't pass up on this deal.
Where else will you have your own private space.
IF you are looking for a little more of an CA/AZ border location, we also have a park in Palo Verde, CA witch is south of Blythe,Ca
IT may not be perfect, but its Home.


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Author(s): Jamie Oliver
North America | Jamie Oliver | General Cookery
Jamie will try real American food and meet the most interesting cooks and producers that this vast country has to offer. His epic journey will take him to the heart of America: its people, culture, music and, most importantly, its food. Along the way Jamie will be getting his hands dirty - meeting hunters, cowboys, fishermen and local producers - as he finds out about the best (and strangest) ingredients on offer. He won't just be sampling, he'll be getting involved: entering a gumbo 'throw-down' in Louisiana, fishing in California and sampling bison in Montana as he joins life on a ranch. As well as being a visually stunning journey, "Jamie's America" is a practical cookbook, with each chapter focusing on the food and recipes of a different state. And the food will be as varied as the landscapes - from spicy Mexican in the desert to freshly caught Alaskan salmon. With 120 brand new recipes, and Jamie's diary narrative running alongside, this will be a celebratory cookbook of a country with a wide food heritage.
Jamie Oliver started cooking at his parents' pub, the Cricketers, in Clavering, Essex, at the age of eight, and has gone on to work with some of the world's top chefs. He founded Fifteen restaurant in London and the associated charity, Fifteen Foundation, which continues to train disadvantaged young people to become chefs. There are now three other Fifteen restaurants in the world: Cornwall, Amsterdam and Melbourne. Jamie has also launched a chain of high street restaurants in the UK called Jamie's Italian. In 2005 Jamie led a campaign to improve the quality of school dinners in the UK and, through the Feed Me Better movement, caused the government to substantially change its policy towards school food. Jamie continues to write for publications in the UK and around the world, including his own magazine, Jamie Magazine. He lives in London and Essex with his wife, Jools, and their daughters, Poppy, Daisy and Petal


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Well, hello there! Welcome to my stop on the Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club Blog Tour hosted by Neverland Blog Tours. I'm so happy to be telling you all what I thought of The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club by Lynsey James.
The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club by Lynsey James
Publication Date: 01 August 2016
Publisher: Carina
Emily Reed is having a bad day. Devastated at losing her hard-earned promotion to the ditz who's sleeping with the boss, her mother drops a devastating bombshell—the dad she's known and loved for twenty-five years isn't her biological father.
Now Emily needs answers and a month in Luna Bay should give her the time she needs to find her father, and land the difficult client at the Sunflower Cottage B&B which should put her back in the running for her coveted promotion.
Setting up the Sunflower Cottage breakfast club should be a great way to meet the locals and maybe even find out who her father is! The only problem is that brooding and insanely gorgeous, Noah, is determined to make Emily's stay perfectly uncomfortable.
Finding out the truth was never going to be simple, but she never thought her heart would get in the way…
After loving Lynsey's previous novels – Just the Way You Are and the Broken Hearts Book Club, only wild horses would keep me away from her third novel – the Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club. This is the second book in the Luna Bay series, but do not fear, you can read this book if you haven't read the first book (although I would definitely recommend that you do!)
The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club follows Emily, a young, career-driven woman living in Glasgow. Following a bad day at work, where she is passed over for a (well deserved) promotion, she is told that her dad isn't her dad, and her biological father is in Luna Bay. Spotting an opportunity to prove herself to her bosses, she travels to Luna Bay to sign the Sunflower Cottage to their roster of hotels. It wouldn't hurt to find out more about her father at the same time, would it?
Well, what can I say, The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club is trademark Lynsey James. I really enjoy Lynsey's style of writing and tone in her novels. It's fresh, chatty and different. I was already familiar with the characters of Luna Bay through the first novel in the series, but they're such a lovely bunch of people it would be a crime if you didn't like them. They're well written and most importantly, they're Yorkshire people. I have to say I am rather envious of Emily literally running into a hunk like Noah. Let me tell you, I never ran into such a hunk when I lived by the seaside… I don't even want to go into what I ran into…
The plot of The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club was as sweet as its name. It's a feel good book, perfect for curling up on the sofa, wrapped up in bed or chilling in the park. Not to fear my fellow commuters – it's also ideal for those long train journeys. As this novel is linked to the second novel, I had a little inkling of what was going to happen. This actually made me enjoy the novel more as I liked the little nods to the previous novel, and how Lynsey linked the two novels together.
I would have liked The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club to be a little longer in story length and perhaps just a little slower in pace… However, it is worth noting that I had an advance review copy that wasn't as polished as the final thing, so perhaps this has been ironed out in final editing.
I awarded 4/5 stars to The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club on GoodReads. It's a book that you can get completely lost into; I swear that the hours flew by when I was reading! I would recommend Lynsey's novels for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Tracy Bloom and to those who are wanting a fresh spin on women's fiction.
I'm so excited for the third book in the Luna Bay series, and my beady eyes have already spotted it on Amazon. I will keep my lips sealed so I don't ruin the surprise, but I do hope that I'll be able to board that blog tour train when the time comes. *flutters eyelashes in Lynsey's direction*
Thank you very much to Lynsey James for providing me with a copy of the novel, and to Neverland Blog Tours for letting me take part in the blog tour! To find out more about Lynsey, you can follow her on Twitter.
Dannie x
A copy of The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club by Lynsey James was provided in exchange for an honest review as part of a blog tour. No further compensation received.


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India holidays
Select an image to see larger
Accommodation rating: Luxury
Please call 020 7873 5000 for more information or to make a booking.
Alternatively, discover other hotels and what to do in Delhi
ExceptionalTruly exclusive and exceptionally luxurious.
LuxuryVery high class accommodation with superb facilities and service.
Superior High standard accommodation, service and facilities.
Good StandardGood standard accommodation, service and facilities.
SimpleClean and comfortable with en suite bathrooms but limited facilities.
BasicVery modest with shared bathrooms and minimal facilities
Combine a stay in the historical city of Lucknow, famed for its British Raj-era architecture and delicious cuisine, with the remarkable wildlife of Dudhwa National Park. The park is one of the few...
Experience a taste of India on this
outstanding introductory tour of the
country's most celebrated sights.
Exploring the Golden Triangle, this
journey combines imperial Delhi with
the legendary...
The Palace on Wheels train offers an
opportunity to explore north-west India's
most spectacular sights in the style of
the maharajas and maharanis. With 16 period carriages, the train
Starting from India's historic capital,
Delhi, this journey for single travellers
continues to Agra to see the sun rise at
the Taj Mahal. Search for elusive Bengal tigers in
Ranthambore, and...
The Deccan Odyssey train comprises 12 air-conditioned deluxe saloons. Guests are...
The Holiday Inn New Delhi International Airport is particularly convenient for transit...
The Hyatt Regency is a five star hotel set in the heart of Delhi. Its facilities include...


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Late show means West have Scott to be positive
Hamilton 38 – 21 West For West's first competitive game of the new season, if there ever was a game of two halves this was it, writes Alan Patterson. West were by far the stronger team at the...
- Posted 4 years ago
Fired-up BSC Glasgow hit the road to Selkirk
John Brogan was full of praise for BSC Glasgow's spirited victory over Preston last Saturday – and called on his men to repeat that winning form on the road. Gerry O'Donnell, Tony Wallace and Craig Johnston were all on target as...
- Posted 4 years ago
The Reflections of Terry Welsh – a rich and colourful local history
A memoir that delves into the rich and colourful history of the west of Glasgow has been published on Kindle with a foreword by journalist and broadcaster Graham Spiers, writes Martin Greig. Reflections: Lambhill, Possil and Elsewhere by the...
- Posted 4 years ago
Meetings this week on Hillhead and Kelvin Park proposals
The first of a series of public meetings to discuss Glasgow city council's proposed changes to West End primary school catchment areas goes ahead tonight at Hillhead. When the new school was relocated from Cecil St to...
- Posted 4 years ago
BSC boss John Brogan – we're ready to get back on track
John Brogan is looking forward to securing three more points at Lochburn tomorrow as BSC Glasgow welcome 10th-placed Preston, writes Ginny Clark. The visitors are one place and two points behind the Broomhill men – who have...
- Posted 4 years ago
Don't miss out – book for Doors Open Day
The booking system for Glasgow Doors Open Day, which takes place between September 15-21, will open on Wednesday, August 27. This free annual heritage festival is coordinated and organised by Glasgow Building Preservation Trust (GBPT), a charity that focuses on saving built heritage...
- Posted 4 years ago
Hillhead and Kelvin Park consultations on the agenda for YoKeCoCo
Yorkhill and Kelvingrove Community Council (YoKeCoCo) meet tomorrow night with Glasgow City Council's consultation on changes to the catchment area for Hillhead Primary School and their proposal to close the Kelvin Park Early Years Centre high on the...
- Posted 4 years ago
Campaign to save Kelvin Park Early Years Centre steps up
The campaign to save Kelvin Park Early Years Centre argue a proposal to close the nursery is an unnecessary measure that threatens a vital resource – with the problem of overcrowding at adjoining Hillhead primary school yet to be addressed by a catchment overhaul. And...
- Posted 4 years ago
Take a walk on the wild side – in search of the West End's architectural menagerie
The West End has a wealth of wildlife-themed statues and carvings, on grand public buildings, on coats of arms and on seemingly random private houses, writes Ronnie Scott. Not all of them are obvious, so take our...
- Posted 4 years ago
BSC boss John Brogan: We're up for the challenge
BSC Glasgow head to Dalbeattie Star tomorrow their confidence undimmed by back to back defeats, writes Ginny Clark. After losing 4-1 at Whitehill and 6-0 at Gretna, BSC boss John Brogan stresses his young players are on a steep learning curve – but ready for...
- Posted 4 years ago


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Peeping into Johnny Depp's Window.
Friday, March 12, 2004
Summary Judgment: Secret Window, The Girl Next Door, Spartan
Ben Williams takes a look at what the critics are saying about this weekend's major movie releases, including the Johnny Depp thriller Secret Window, the comedy The Girl Next Door and the action flick Spartan. Listen to the segment.
Television: Touching Evil
Dennis Cass reviews Touching Evil, a new cop series premiering tonight on the USA network. Listen to the segment.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Chatterbox: Ten Commandments Judge Speaks Out
Timothy Noah speaks with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who gained national recognition for placing a monument to the Ten Commandments in the courthouse lobby in defiance of a court order. Moore discusses issues including gay marriage, the separation of church and state, and his own political ambitions. Listen to the segment.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Explainer: Removing a Gallbladder
As U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recovers from gallbladder surgery, Brendan Koerner explains the science behind gallbladder removal and the operation's effects on the human body. Listen to the segment.
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
Jurisprudence: Scalia's Conflicts of Interest
NPR's Madeleine Brand talks with Dahlia Lithwick about legal and ethical implications of Justice Antonin Scalia's association with people involved in cases being argued before the Supreme Court. Listen to the segment.
Monday, March 8, 2004
On the Trail: Kerry's Chances for Winning
NPR's Madeleine Brand speaks to Jacob Weisberg about the remaining Democratic presidential primaries and how the polls reflect Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's chances to win the White House. Listen to the segment.
On the Trail: Kerry's Chances for Winning


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Worst Books I Read in 2015 – Book List
I can't complain about 2015. I only had 9 one-star ratings, and of those, only three or four were truly "so terrible I really wish I hadn't read it" type deals. The rest were just bad.
9. Horrorstör
by Grady Hendrix
- 9781594745263
- Format:
- Paperback, 248 pages
- Published:
- Quirk, 2014
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
So, this was bizarre.
Horrorstör is a wacky horror novel. It's set in an American knock-off of Ikea called Orsk. This particular Orsk store is haunted, however, and three employees stay overnight to get to the bottom of it. Grady Hendrix attempts to enhance the novel through a number of artistic gimmicks ranging from the chapter titles/descriptions to the entire design of the book.
As far as the design goes, it's a nifty idea. It would get annoying fast if every book did this, and to some extent I started ignoring it towards the end. Just give me the story, damn it! However, it creates some nostalgia for kids' books. At some point along the way, my novels stopped trying. When I was younger they were shiny and glittery and full of bonus games and pop-out cardboard figures and holographic covers. Then gradually, the sheen faded and the glitter receded, leaving only the most minimalist and "professional" of designs. It says something interesting about our society's aesthetics around reading and books that what Hendrix attempts here is somewhat unusual.
Of course a gimmick is usually a way to prop up a poor story. I don't think that's the case here. The story actually has everything it needs to be engaging: a diverse ensemble cast with clear motivations, a clearly-defined threat and conflict, and plenty of twists and turns to keep people guessing. Indeed, the characterization in particular impresses me. All the main characters get a fair amount of development. Amy, the protagonist, is not all that likable (but is still fairly sympathetic). And while Basil begins the story as your stereotypical "I drank the Kool-Aid" manager, we eventually see there are other sides to him.
Where Horrorstör begins to lose me is the attempt to blend different tones of humour in with the horror. As the novel opens, Hendrix wants to satirize the emptiness of working day-in/day-out for a massive furniture retailer. Elements of this satire persist throughout the story. Meanwhile, we also see parodies of everything from ghost-hunting reality TV shows to the subversion of the "kindly, quiet middle-aged woman" trope.
The book just puts so much on the shelf, to borrow an improv term, and it doesn't always come back for some pay-off. The ending in particular feels like a let-down (but then again, what ending to a horror story isn't?). After a lengthy, somewhat confusing, but definitely intense journey inside Orsk, the survivors emerge ... and then leave? And then some time passes before the novel implies a Horrorstör 2 is about to happen.
Smash-cut to artsy credits while a rock song popular in the early 2000s plays.
I would make this review longer (maybe), but I'm writing this in Windows and am seriously missing my Compose key for inserting these accented characters.
Horrorstör brings it. I don't know exactly what "it" is, but it's at least brought. I'm not sure there's a clear audience for this--is it for horror fans? Horror parody fans? Parody fans? Furniture store fans? I shrug. It doesn't really achieve top marks in any category, but I stayed engaged, and I enjoyed the ride.
8. Orphans of the Sky
by Robert A. Heinlein
- 9780671318451
- Format:
- Paperback, 224 pages
- Published:
- Baen, 2001
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
Second Heinlein collection in this book (the first being The Man Who Sold the Moon ). Now we have two related 1940s novellae fixed-up into a single novel in the 1960s. Oh, science fiction publishing, you are so fun.
Orphans of the Sky is one of the ur–generation ship tales. Heinlein immediately seizes on the possibility that something could go so disastrously wrong during the voyage such that the entire crew forgets it is on a ship. For all intents and purposes, the Ship is now the universe. Anyone, like Hugh, who challenges this worldview is accused of heresy. (There's a nice little shout-out to Galileo's trials and tribulations with the Catholic Church.) This plot was executed most memorably for me in "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," an episode in the third season of the original Star Trek.
There's something about generation ships that doesn't really apply to me as a motif. I really didn't like Journey into Space , and I wasn't crazy about this book either. As far as the writing goes, it is pretty much what I expect from Heinlein now—a lot of conversation, a lot of scientific speculation and libertarianism disguised as the desire for open scientific inquiry.
The plot is mediocre. Lots of repetitive actions culminating in an all-too-predictable betrayal and a mad dash towards near-certain death. It goes through the motions, follows certain forms, and so it is minimally fulfilling in that barest of ways. While it is true that this is among the first (if not the first) story of its kind, I suspect that others who have since picked up on these themes have used them better, or in more interesting ways, or with better characters.
I also can't forgive the level of misogyny in this book. Heinlein's sexism in The Man Who Sold the Moon is problematic, sure, but mostly for its erasure of women—he does at least feature a single woman scientist, even if she is objectified. But in Orphans of the Sky, women play a far smaller and worse role. Women of the Ship, it seems, exist to be wives and breeders. Hugh "selects" two women, graciously "allowing" the first to keep her own name because she behaves. The other, however, is "wild as a mutie" and bites Hugh, so "he had slapped her, naturally, and that should have been an end to the matter" and then "had not got around to naming her." Later on Heinlein talks about how she is better behaved after Hugh knocks out a tooth! Because there's nothing like trivializing domestic abuse, amirite?
If you're a diehard Heinlein completist (I'm not) or you have a particular fascination with the subgenre of generation ships (I don't), you should probably read this. Otherwise, give it a miss.
7. Fall
by Colin McAdam
- 9780670067206
- Format:
- Hardcover, 368 pages
- Published:
- , 2009
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
In Grade 11 English we read A Separate Peace , by John Knowles, as our Novel, and I hated it. Now, I know that hating the assigned reading is a time-honoured tradition in English class, but you have to understand that this was my first experience with such an emotion. I was the book-addicted, scholarly, high-achieving nerdy student who, in Grade 10, had gotten together with friends and their English teacher at lunch to read Shakespeare (and then after our school closed at the end of Grade 10, continued to meet up outside of school over the following year). I had never not enjoyed the assigned reading before; I, with all the plucky naivety of someone who looked up to teachers and already wanted to be one, assumed that if the teacher chose it, it must be good.
Oh, how much I had left to learn.
Now, full disclosure: the aforementioned school closure and move to a new school took its toll on me and my peers, and my way of coping with it was to be somewhat of a jerk to my Grade 11 English teacher. I took it into my head that I wasn't being "challenged" enough and me sure she knew that I wasn't happy that this year's Shakespeare selection would be The Taming of the Shrew (even though it's actually an all right play to study, and later that year I went to see a neat theatre-in-the-round version). This was one of the few times as a student that I was not-pleasant to a teacher, and I regret that.
So it's hard to say how much my displeasure over being forced to discuss and analyze A Separate Peace was caused by the book and how much came from simply being resolved not to enjoy this English class. But ever since then, I've had a complicated relationship with books about private boarding schools. I file them away into a mental folder in which the "boarding" has been crossed out with "boring," and only John Irving or Robertson Davies can usually manage to break out of the cabinet at night to haunt me with dreams of tattooed wrestlers, bears, and snowballs inducing labour.
Fall reminded me a lot of A Separate Peace—or, to be more accurate, since I don't remember the book at all, it reminded me of my memory of an idea of A Separate Peace. Colin McAdam creates a fictional Canadian private school and follows two boys, roommates, eighteen years old and thus men, really, as they orbit the eponymous girl who is the object of their affections.
I cringe as I write that last clause—a subordinate clause, even—because I'm sad that a book about two dudes moping over a woman still managed to get shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2009. Have we not moved on from such pubescent writing? Apparently not. Fall is every bit an object in this book, denied both voice and agency, forced to exist simultaneously in the fantasies of these two young men as well as a character who serves only as a sexual mirror for one and a fixation for the other. And everything about this plot is so earnest. It's as if McAdam thinks he's on to something big, like no one else in the history of the Western world has thought to write about teenage boys discovering sex and love and obsession in this way before. There's not even a hint of self-deprecating self-awareness here, just the pure and honest pain of it—and yes, it's well done in that CanLit sort of way. But my point is that Fall takes itself way too seriously about two decades too late. If it had decided to subvert itself at any point, maybe it could have had a chance.
Instead we have Noel, called Wink because of his lazy eye in that painful way boys have of giving out cutting nicknames. Noel is withdrawn, introverted and intellectual and actually getting something out of this fancy education his diplomat father is paying for. Rooming with Julius, the most popular of the seniors at St. Ebury's, Noel falls for Fall, Julius' girlfriend. At first we're supposed to see this as the kind of unrequited pining of someone for his friend's girl, but soon McAdam shows that there is a darker undercurrent to Noel, one that culminates in tragedy for all involved.
If Noel is unplumbed depths, then Julius is tapped out shallows. I suppose the stream of consciousness narration of his chapters is supposed to emphasize this: Julius is all surface, no depth. I'll be honest: the stream of consciousness didn't do much for me; it's an effective narrative device, but I don't like it.
The fact that this is a Canadian private school is mildly interesting. Unless you go to one, or know someone who does, you probably don't think much about private schools in Canada. They seem like a foreign thing. Indeed, St. Ebury's and its real-life counterparts are the domain of the old moneyed types, Canadian or diplomatic as depicted here, who still cling to the boarding-and-starched-uniform visions, complete with "masters" and complicated disciplinary codes. It's interesting to be reminded that this is still a thing.
McAdam points out the hypocrisy of those places, the tension between the cost of providing such an education and the way the straitjacket of rules infantilizes these adult boys. This is a legitimate criticism. But it's also a little beside the point, given what Noel ends up doing.
The inevitability of Noel's heel turn is fairly obvious quite early in the book. So it's not so much a surprise as it is the fulfilment of a promise when it happens, and everything that follows is anticlimactic. There is a strange beauty to the plot as McAdam has structured it; Noel is at least semi-fascinating as a character study of a species of sociopath. We could have long, meandering conversations about unreliable narrators and suppressed memories.
But that doesn't dispel my ultimate discomfort, which is that when you strip away all the decoration, what you have is a plot driven by a damsel in distress. Fall is not about Fall the woman but what these two men imagine Fall might be. And that is interesting psychologically, yes. But it's been done before, and I don't know that it's all that necessary for us to keep retreading the issue from this privileged perspective of the poor damaged rich boys.
Where's the story from Fall's perspective? Why can't we learn about who she is, rather than who Julius and Noel tell us she is? Why can't we hear her thoughts on whether Julius is a bore (but great in bed) and how Noel is sweet but also a little creepy, and how she loves her mom but is afraid she'll never get a streak of independence? Of all the poorly-sketched characters in this book, Fall definitely seems like the most lively, most interesting, deepest of them all. Shame we never meet her.
I'd love to see Fall make decisions. I'd love to see her fight back at the river instead of serving the role of prop to cement Noel's downfall. McAdam has so many opportunities here to elevate the story rather than go through the motions.
I don't question his skills as a writer, really. It's a nice enough book, albeit one that is unquestionably shooting for that "literary" label. And therein lies the problem: Fall just takes itself too seriously. McAdam hopes to become great by following in the footsteps of those we consider great rather than stopping to critique the greats, to steal what works from them but question and tear down the things that don't. The result is simply a reiteration of what has come before: there is nothing in Fall you haven't seen elsewhere, and it's the same ol', same ol' stories of men obsessing over women that male writers have been writing for a very long time.
6. Wit's End
by Karen Joy Fowler
- 9780399154751
- Format:
- Hardcover, 324 pages
- Published:
- Putnam Adult, 2008
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
I like meta-books, books about books and writers and readers and how stories influence our lives. As someone who spends what, I admit, is probably an inordinate amount of time reading, reading about books is important and informative. Wit's End is metafiction about mystery. Rima's godmother, Addison Early, is a successful Agatha Christie—like mystery writer. Rima comes to stay with Addison at Wit's End, Addison's little refuge from the world in Santa Cruz. Cut off from the rest of the world by the loss of those closest to her, Rima is adrift. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, she latches on to stray elements from Addison's past, determined to unearth some sort of mystery to solve.
This idea that the detectives in mystery novels have it easy because the author does the hard work of supplying the mystery is perhaps Karen Joy Fowler's most sublime observation in the entire book. I had never thought of it that way before, but it's true. Detectives get all the breaks: neat, orderly clues; clear-cut motivations; a nice timeline of events. Real life is much messier than that, and in many cases, as Rima discovers, the nature of the mystery is not clear.
Alas, little else about Wit's End held my attention. Rima herself is a cipher of a character. We never really get close to her. Fowler shares morsels of backstory with a parsimony that I would envy in a science-fiction author. I got the sense that she was never really close to anyone except her late brother. With him they were a dyad; now she is a monad and unsure of how to live.
None of the other characters are all that intriguing either. Fowler tries. She alludes to Tilda's checkered past of homelessness and alcoholism and the struggles reconnecting with her estranged adult son. Addison is supposed to be a kind of ageing grand dame, resplendent in her achievements but worried by the ticking clock on the mantle. Martin is supposed to be … I don't know, what passes for a cad these days?
Yet all this amounts to is a series of set pieces, and static ones at that. None of the characters change much (not even Rima). I kept expecting Addison to get tetchy when Rima continued to prod Addison's past and look into Holy City. I kept expecting a fight, or at least an argument—nothing. Aside from that very real, very rewarding moment between Rima and Martin, the emotions in this book are flat. Even when Rima winds out trapped in a house with her "stalker," Fowler manages to puncture the tension building in the room and replace it with an underwhelming, albeit humourous, resolution.
In its attempts to be a character-driven story centred on Rima, Wit's End fizzles out into a boring book where nothing happens. The promise that this book's cover copy makes—that this would be about how Addison's fans have taken over her characters and plotlines—never materializes. There are references to fanfic (especially slashfic) and Wikipedia pages and blog comments, but it's all ancillary. That would have made for a more interesting story. Still, this is not merely a case of a book misrepresented by its description.
I enjoyed the way Fowler uses Addison to share one type of writer's perspective on readers. But that's about it. The characters in this book are dull; the plot is largely a collection of unrelated events; as a protagonist, Rima is about as interesting as paint that has very nearly dried. Fowler can do much better, and you, as a reader, can do much better.
5. You Suck
by Christopher Moore
- 9780060590291
- Format:
- Hardcover, 328 pages
- Published:
- William Morrow & Company, 2007
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
Previously, on Ben's reviews…
Jody and Thomas. I can't even.
I find Jody's characterization hugely problematic…. I just wish Moore hadn't ruined what might have been a great thing by falling back on clichéd jokes, like, "I could stand to lose five pounds." We get it: women are obsessed with their weight! Hah-hah, very funny. I'll pencil in a laugh sometime next week.
I'm going to try the next book, because Moore has earned a lot of credit with me. But if Thomas pulls anything like that again, I'm out of here. I have better things to do with my time than watch an insecure guy try to stop his vampire ladyfriend from leaving her in progressively creepier and rapier ways.
And now, the continuation…
You Suck picks up almost literally where Bloodsucking Fiends left off: C. Thomas Flood is a vampire, having been bitten by his vampiric girlfriend Jody. Once her daylight minion, now they have to find a new minion for the both of them. But the heat is on in San Francisco, because they have savvy detectives, an Emperor, and a Safeway night shift crew breathing down their pale necks.
I have to say, this book starts off with much more promise than Bloodsucking Fiends. Tommy and Jody's relationship dynamic has changed. I wouldn't say they are on "equal" footing now, but they are both vampires, at least. Jody herself is definitely more confident here, and Moore explicitly shows how much she delights in flaunting her sexuality for herself, because she no longer fears walking alone at night. That's all well and good.
Indeed, I'll go ahead and say that the characterization of the two protagonists is much improved. The other characters? Not so much. Every remaining character falls back into one or more stereotypes in Moore's attempt to wring as much clichéd humour from this book as possible. I started to tune out and skim when he introduced Blue, the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold (and blue skin), and almost entirely checked out when dead whores started showing up.
Right, Moore, look … I don't care whether your book has a "strong female protagonist." I don't care if your book has two female protagonists who show interesting and different sides to living as a woman in San Francisco. (I love Abby's gothy teenage geekiness!) Fridging women is not OK. Joking about fridging dead whores is also not OK. The former does not, will never, excuse the latter. Similarly, the fact that Blue comes back—out of the blue—as a vampire doesn't make up for the tasteless jokes at her expense.
Any enjoyment I was getting from You Suck was sucked out of me—pun intended—by these missteps.
At least Bloodsucking Fiends had stakes. (No, I mean plot stakes, not wooden stakes—gah. Why is this happening?!) The elusive and mysterious Elijah was a credible antagonist in the first book. Now he's just a nuisance, and most of the conflict comes from Tommy and Jody running around trying to train Abby and move. Yes, this entire book is a sitcom about moving to the apartment down the block.
Towards the very end, the book shifts more and more into Abby's first-person diary perspective. Now, I love Abby, and I loved her diary entries when they were intermittent. The more frequently they appeared, the more they grated in tone, though. The sudden appearance of Steve as a vampire hunter/love interest for Abby at the eleventh hour is almost as unsatisfactory as the wimpiness of the new vampires on the block.
I didn't even realize how worked up I was about this until I wrote this review, and now I just can't even.
Do I read the third book? It's on my shelf, checked out the same time I borrowed this one. They are quick—I read this at a ball game, so I could read book three in less than an afternoon. But is it worth it? The cover copy seems to promise that it foregrounds Abby and includes a vampire cat.
But is it worth it?
I have since read the third book. It was worth it. Kind of. Review forthcoming!
4. The Incrementalists
by Steven Brust
- 9780765334237
- Format:
- Paperback, 368 pages
- Published:
- Tor Fantasy, 2014
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
These people are oddly obsessed with putting bathrobes on after showering. She used his bathrobe, so he had to settle for a towel—what, you don't towel off and then put on a bathrobe?
I was hesitant to borrow this from the library—the description screamed "generic pseudo–science-fiction thriller." Neverthless, I resolved to give it a chance. I swear I didn't notice that John Scalzi had blurbed it until I started reading. And it makes sense that Scalzi would blurb this, because it's in his wheelhouse—but neither Steven Brust nor Skyler White writes it the way Scalzi does. The Incrementalists is a bizarre mix of John Scalzi and Tim Powers (I like one and not the other, but it's the worst of both, so don't take this as a recommendation).
Now, I love me some Scalzi, but I'll happily admit that there are things about his style I don't like. He writes great, snappy dialogue—a lot of great, snappy dialogue. Too much, sometimes, to the point where all of his characters just feel so snappy and sarcastic and witty that they fade together. Scalzi is not a hugely descriptive writer. And that's OK—not every writer needs to be descriptive or should be. And I get that thrillers, as a genre, tend to be lighter on description and heavier on dialogue and action. The fact that I only enjoy this occasionally, like I only occasionally enjoy a whipped topping dessert, is one reason I don't read them that often.
Unfortunately, The Incrementalists seems to reside towards the lower end of the scale. It's particularly nondescript, except when it gets way too descriptive. I just opened to a random page (303) and was confronted with this gem:
He was all that mattered. The taste of his mouth on mine, the solid unyieldingness of his body that my body wanted to wrap and mold and form itself around. Everything else felt irrelevant and trivial to me, and we almost shedded our clothes trying to get free of them fast enough to fill our hands and mouths with each other again. There was no fear, no pulling away or even holding back, nothing reserved or restrained or considered. His hands hurt me, and I wanted them to. His mouth took from me and I wanted nothing left behind.
This is only really a problem when it comes to the scenes in the Garden, where description is everything. I admit I'm not the best person to critique stuff like this, because I don't visualize places as they are described when I read. But everything about this book just seems like a confusing mish-mash of same-same.
Even Ren and Phil feel very similar. The first-person perspective jumps between them within chapters. Now, I recently ran across an identical narrative device in Trouble. It worked fine there, because Pratt managed to differentiate between the two main characters. Here, I often forget whether Ren or Phil was the narrator, reminded only if the other character was in the scene and being referred to in the third person.
The basic premise of The Incrementalists is great. It's like reincarnation lite—personality continuity suspended in a kind of symbiosis, with an agenda on top to "make the world better." I liked it, and I genuinely liked how Brust and White handled the concept. Even the plot—Celeste, a recently deceased Incrementalist, is running a Xanatos gambit (TVTropes) that could destabilize the entire operation—is fantastic. By all rights, this should be a fun thriller.
Other than the stylistic and narrative issues, though, I just feel let down by the execution of that plot. The main characters spend far too much time sitting around talking about the Garden, explaining the Garden to Ren, "grazing" in the Garden, or mumbling pseudo-scientific stuff. It's all very Roger Zelazny (or, as I mentioned, Tim Powers), in that it's the magical realist equivalent of science fiction. But the most tense moment has to be when Celeste and Phil are at odds over a gun—that was exciting. The rest of the book is just work trying to follow the meandering, sometimes thorny explanations that Brust and White serve up to shore up an increasingly fractured "magic" (for lack of a better term) system.
Look, if you have a higher tolerance for this type of novel, you might enjoy this, just as I have a much higher tolerance for the pedantic hard SF technobabble of Alastair Reynolds than a lot of other people just as, if not more, intelligent as me. To each their own, right? But just because other people might enjoy this novel doesn't mean it's well-written or even all that good, in the same way that a serviceable cup of Tetley orange pekoe tea is nowhere near as good as loose-leaf. I drink the former pretty often when I'm too lazy to steep it properly—but I don't pretend it's amazing.
3. Year Zero
by Rob Reid
- 9780345534415
- Format:
- Hardcover, 364 pages
- Published:
- Del Rey, 2012
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
Why not finish out 2015 by reading a book called Year Zero? I was ambivalent about this one, and I figured this for a win–win proposition. Either I love it, so my year ends with a bang; or I hate it, but if so, then there's always next year! I was correct—and I'm coming down on the "hate it" side. So here's to 2016: a brand new year for reading! But first, let's sweep away this year with one last scathing review!
The warning signs for Year Zero start early. The prologue, Chapter Zero, is a neutron-star–dense cludge of exposition dropping us into this universe, where the universe's civilizations are enthralled by humanity's music but, because they are bound to respect our laws, are now guilty of copyright infringement and owe us ALL THE MONEY in statutory fines. It's a stupid premise—and I'm OK with that. I appreciate that Rob Reid is trying to poke fun at a subject we normally consider dry and uninteresting, even though it's super important. The cover copy of this book tries to liken it to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is sacrilege and inaccurate. And it's clear that Year Zero is trying to be a hip, zany-but-compelling critique of the music business and the absurdity of (American) copyright laws. Yet it is just so poorly written (and edited) that it falls short of even the most generous expectations I might set for it.
The prologue is short; I'll give it that. If it were the only example of egregious exposition, then I might be able to move past it. But the infodumping really only gets worse from there. When Nick Carter, our hero, meets his first aliens, he naturally has lots of questions. And so most of the scenes are question-and-answer dialogues that lead us down increasingly convoluted rabbit-holes replete with pop culture references that might have been relevant and interesting in the nineties but just feel tired now. Nick periodically pauses to curse out Windows (and the last chapter is devoted, in a sad digression, almost entirely to that), and Reid alludes to Clippy, the Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears … for a book from 2012, it feels dated almost instantly.
Meanwhile, between the constant, unwanted stream of information and the dated pop culture references, keeping track of the high-concept plot becomes an unwieldy proposition. There's a reason why law shows focus on the drama among lawyers and their minions and courtroom scenes are unrealistically presented: real-life law can be boring. It's tedious and dull. And the legal parts of Year Zero are exactly that. The moment Nick or someone else starts talking about the law, my eyes begin to glaze over. It doesn't help that Reid belongs to the select group of people who think that footnotes are funny or somehow add something to a novel. (Full disclosure: I was briefly one of those people one summer in 2006, but I was also 16, so I feel like I have a bit of an excuse.) While they might have a claim to being more appropriate given the law motifs of the book, the footnotes are universally unfunny and forgettable; indeed, they are simply another excuse to shove more "facts" at us and more irrelevant names and dates.
I get the feeling that Reid is just trying so hard to be funny with every single page, as if the sheer volume of humour contained within the story might somehow make people care about copyright reform. Now, I already care about copyright reform, and I actually completely agree with some of Reid's real-life positions on the absurd nature of these infringement laws. So maybe it's a case of preaching to the choir, but this book neither made me laugh nor made me care about copyright.
There was one set of remarks I found both genuinely hilarious and thought-provoking. Reid has Nick comment on how the executives in the music industry seem to hate everyone who helps them make money:
And as for decisive, these people are clinically paralyzed by ignorance, arrogance, politics, bureaucracy and, above all else, fear — fear of doing the wrong thing. And it's not just fear of hurting themselves that has them hamstrung. No — what brings on the night sweats is their fear of doing something that might inadvertently benefit someone they hate. And this is a real risk, because the giant music execs seem to hate everyone their businesses touch. They hate each other, for one thing. And boy, do they hate the musicians (spoiled druggie narcissists!) They certainly hate the radio stations that basically advertise their music for free (too much power, the bastards!) And they loathe the online music industry (thieving geek bastards!) They hated the music retailers, back when they still existed (the bastards took too much margin!) They hate the Walmart folks, who account for most of what's left of physical CD sales (red state Nazi cheapskates!) They've always hated the concert industry (we should be getting that money!) And they all but despise the music-buying public (thieves! they're all a bunch of down-loading geek bastard thieving-ass thieves!)
He continues in this vein to point out how the industry's hatred of Apple for revolutionizing digital music sales (and striking the biggest blow to piracy) with iTunes/iPods is irrational. This is a really great point, and this moment resonated for me. And then the book goes and makes another stupid joke about something else, and the moment is gone.
I'm sure a great deal of work went into this. And that's where the editing needed to be better—burn it down and salt the earth help. Because the constant stream of "look at me and how clever and relevant I can be" jokes, however hard it might have been to come up with them, just feels like an attempt to cover up a lazy plot that meanders and goes almost nowhere, only to fizzle at the end. This also in the way Reid names things: Wrinkles, Perfuffinites, pluuhhs, and Guardians. It's so half-baked and lazy that it almost feels contemptuous, as if Reid is intentionally writing bad science fiction in order to mock it—and, to be clear, I'm certain that isn't the intent. But this is what happens when, in trying to be humourous, you make the mistake of not taking the genre itself seriously.
Further to the idea of laziness, Year Zero's protagonist is a great example of one of the more common and troubling effects of white male privilege in literature. It's kind of the corollary to the uproar over more diverse casts, or casting non-white, non-male actors as leads in "important" movies like Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Basically, we white dudes are very good at believing that everyone likes to read stories where the hero is a white dude like us. Now, by itself, a story with a white dude as the hero is not a bad thing. But it gets really problematic when the white dude is almost certainly less competent and less interesting than other members of the cast.
Nick Carter is somewhat boring and not all that original—much as his boss initially pegs him. Indeed, Manda and Judy both seem far more suited to the task of dealing with aliens—and despite Nick's eleventh hour inspiration to make him the hero once again, they pretty much shoulder the heavy lifting. And both Manda and Judy feel like far more interesting characters than Nick, to the extent that the entire book could have been written from one of their perspectives, without Nick at all, and been better for it.
But white male privilege often means authors have a huge blindspot here and labour under the assumption that a bland white guy with no particular redeeming talents or skills will, by default, be a more likable and sympathetic protagonist than competent women. While this is a problem for Year Zero, it's not so much a critique of Reid in particular as an author but an example of a more systemic problem with our literature. We need to do better here, and one way to do it is to stop and think about who the main character of our books should really be.
Aside from that brief moment of lucidity I mentioned above, Year Zero almost manages to come together and feel coherent towards the end of the book. Nick and Manda are racing, almost out of time before the baddies' plot comes to fruition. This crunch lends an urgency to the pacing that not even the constant infodumping can dispel. Unfortunately, Reid doesn't sustain this suspense, and at what should have been a fretful climax, Nick miraculously saves the day in one of the most boring and tedious courtroom scenes I've read. And then there's that last chapter about how Bill Gates and Windows are evil (amirite), and I just wanted to groan.
If Year Zero demonstrates anything, it isn't the absurdity of copyright law. It's that writing comedy is difficult. Not only does it take hard work, but I think a lot of people don't realize that even good comedy writers end up discarding a lot of material just because it doesn't work. Sometimes it can be salvaged, and sometimes it gets put to rest for good. But just because you have tried your best to be funny doesn't mean you should put that best effort out there and expect a gold star.
I'm disappointed in this book not just because it's terrible but because it's terrible and it's about a subject close to my heart. I'm really sympathetic to the ideas Reid portrays here; I wish I could love this book and hold it up as a great way to learn more about what bad copyright laws are doing to our society. It's not meant to be.
So here's to my last review of 2015!
2. Replay
by Ken Grimwood
- 9781400190102
- Format:
- Audiobook, 12 pages
- Published:
- Tantor Media Inc, 2008
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
For the first time in a while, I actually regret sticking out this book instead of DNF-ing it. It was bad. Just as I was starting to lose all hope, there was a glimmer a couple of hours in that made me hang on a bit longer. And then I figured I might as well finish the whole thing just to learn why Jeff keeps replaying parts of his life. Because when you get right down to it, Replay has a sick and amazing premise, but Ken Grimwood's writing leaves much to be desired.
Grimwood's prose is so purple I'm surprised it's not gangrenous. I listened to the audio version (because that was the only version available from my library), mostly at 2.4x speed, and it still felt like too long. Grimwood feels it's necessary to describe every single thing in detail. It's not just a table; it's a luxurious oak table with a fine gold inlay that Jeff purchased with money he won or got from investments or whatever. She's not just a woman; she has pert yet simultaneously round breasts that rise just the right amount as she raises her long, slender arms above her head. Every time Jeff picks up a glass of wine or looks at an album label the narrator has to interject with some kind of commentary on the vintage or irrelevant facts about the career of that band.
It is, quite literally, a maddening experience.
I could almost forgive that, but Replay is also just creepily male gazey. At one point, pretty early on in the novel, Jeff literally calls a woman "a machine made for fucking."
You just don't say that, ever, with the possible exception of writing (bad) erotic fiction.
Oh, and then he gives that character a huge bag of money because he's breaking up with her, and she pity fucks him, because "for $250,000 you deserve it." What??
But this isn't just poor writing. Indeed, it should be a laudable thing when I inform you that, aside from Jeff, almost every other character of note in this book is a woman. That is, until you realize that's the case because they are all sex interests for Jeff. Grimwood spends an inordinate time focusing on Jeff's sex life. The bulk of Jeff's replays focus on which woman he decides to shack up with and how well she satisfies his physical and emotional man-baby needs. And with the exception of his mother (because ew), even if Jeff doesn't sleep with a woman, he still thinks about sleeping with her, and the narrator describes her entirely in terms of how fuckable she is.
This is pretty much the textbook example of male gaze. It's painful to listen to this for hours on end. Now I know what's like for women to watch or read most movies or books. So, yeah. Thanks, Replay, for helping me to build empathy with how women feel in our society by being so terribly creepy? I think?
It's just such a shame that this amazing premise gets squandered. Jeff, and then Jeff and Pamela when he meets her during his third replay, speculate a little as to the cause and reason behind their staggered, spiralling reincarnations. Yet there is no payoff. None. We never learn why or how they keep reliving their lives, just that they have learned some big lesson about making the most out of their futures. Except I'm pretty sure that Jeff is just going to continue evaluating women's worth as sex objects and being a terrible husband, because he is the worst.
Just don't read this book.
1. Damned
by Chuck Palahniuk
- 9780385671101
- Format:
- Hardcover, 256 pages
- Published:
- Doubleday Canada, 2011
Spoiler Alert! This review contains crucial details about the plot of this book.
I have to return this book to the library soon, because despite putting it on hold, it has another hold on it already. Already. This Chuck Palahniuk guy sure is popular. Yet I feel as if I should do my civic duty and put a sticky note inside this book that reads, "Don't bother." That's pretty much my review of Damned, in two words.
Madison Spencer is a thirteen-year-old girl, the daughter of rich-but-eccentric parents who love her but are not close to her. She overdoses on marijuana on her thirteenth birthday, dies, and goes to Hell, which it turns out runs on candy and forces people to work, usually as telemarketers. (It is Hell, I guess, so that's fair.)
Madison Spencer is really concerned with letting you know that she is well aware of who Judy Blume is and that she has a good vocabulary. That's why she starts every chapter with a faux-naive address to the Prince of Lies himself: "Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison," and why every time she uses a word that you might doubt a thirteen-year-old would know, she lampshades it by challenging you and reminding us of her bookish habits, because she feels alienated and angsty (unlike any other teen in the history of ever). When she isn't sharing her thoughts on her own sexuality, she's rubbing decaptitated heads into giant clitorises, telling living people that dying and going to Hell is a bucket o' fun, and punching Hitler and ripping off his moustache as a trophy (because why not?).
Going to be honest: I kind of stopped paying attention after the punching Hitler part. But by that time I was too far in to quit, and I rather hoped that Palahniuk would somehow pull a redemptive ending out of his ass that would, if not make my time sunk into this worth it, at least give me something marginally positive to say in this review.
Damned occurs entirely in the first-person voice of Maddy. And that's where it falls flat for me: Chuck Palahniuk does not convince me that this is a thirteen-year-old girl, or at least, not any thirteen-year-old girl I want to sympathize with:
A crew of sinister Snarky Miss Snarky-pants girls at my old boarding school, the infamous three who taught me the French-kissing Game, they once professed toe ducate me about human reproduction. As they told it to me, the reason boys desire so desperately to kiss girls is because, with each kiss, the activity makes the boy's wanger grow larger. The more girls a boy can kiss, the larger a wanger he'll eventually possess, and the boys boasting the largest are awarded the best-paying, highest-status jobs. Really, it's all very simple. All boys devote their lives to amassing the most elongated genitals, growing the nasty things so that when they eventually wedge them inside some unfortunate girl, the distant end of the enlarged wanger actually breaks off—yes, the wanger flesh becomes so hardened that it shatters—and the broken portion remains lodged within the girl's hoo-hoo. This natural event is much like those lizards that live in arid deserts and can voluntarily detach their squirming tails. Any amount, from the pointed tip to almost the entire wiener, can literally snap off inside a girl, and she's fully unable to remove it.
WTF, Chuck? The above language sounds like something I'd more likely find in Worst. Person. Ever. —and you wish you were as darkly hilarious as Coupland. Not only is that just crude, but it's not even the type of crude that would actually slip out of a thirteen-year-old girl's lips. Trust me, I asked a couple of people who were once thirteen-year-old girls. Did you?
It's not even the "thirteen-year-old" or the "girl" parts that Palahniuk fails so badly at: Maddy just doesn't seem like an actual person. She is a badly written character. And given the equally-bad twist at the end, maybe that's intentional Palahniuk is just trying to be uber-meta and clever—but I'm just not charitable enough to cut him such a large length of slack. My slack is incredibly short supply these days, and I cannot dole it out to just anyone. You have to earn some of my slack, Chuck, and you don't do that here.
Even if I cut you slack on Maddy—and I'm not—the rest of Damned is still a disaster. Let's talk about Hell:
I explain the seemingly arbitrary rules of which people run afoul, how each living person is allowed to use the F-word a maximum of seven hundred times. Most living persons haven't the slightest idea how easy it is to be damned, but should anyone say fuck for the 701st time, he or she is automatically doomed. Similar rules apply to personal hygiene; for example, the 855th time you fail to wash your hands after voiding your bowels or bladder, you're doomed….
Such yawn. Much boredom.
And yes—I will say this explicitly, lest someone reads these criticisms and challenges me on the grounds that I did not "get it"—I get it: Palahniuk is trying to make Hell sound boring and drab and overly bureaucratic. The problem with that? It's boring (and drab). Matthew Hughes does a far superior job depicting an overly-bureaucratic Hell. And he manages to do so while exploring some interesting moral and philosophical issues. Palahniuk just seems to be working out some prurient plotlines that don't actually go anywhere.
One reason I got so far into the book before realizing I should bail is that I was waiting for something to happen (beyond the going to Hell part). Maddy spends the first hundred pages stuck in a cell or wandering aimlessly around Hell with her friends before we even get a glimmer of the wider structure of the place. Even then there seems to be little hope of an over-arching storyline. Maddy veers from one remembrance of her parents' terrible parenting to another, and all the while she has conversations with living people over the phone. Oh, and then she goes off on some kind of sabbatical and ends up punching Hitler.
Because … why not?
Then there's the twist at the end. Without spoiling it, all I can say is it puts Maddy in a Satan-killing mood, and that's where the book ends. On a cliffhanger. After less than three hundred pages. Maybe if you had led with the twist, Chuck, and built an engrossing story around it, then I would have liked Damned. As it is, now I just feel like you spent an entire novel working up to the real story, in Doomed. The irony here is that the only reason I read Damned is because my Dad gave me a copy of Doomed many Christmases ago, and I thought it sounded very interesting but that I should read the first book in the series before I read it.
Past!me, you were so wrong, it is not even funny.
Damned is crazy, and not in a good crazy way. I'm guessing Palahniuk wants to be clever in a shocking-look-at-me-for-how-outrageous-this-is! kind of way. It all falls very flat, and the result is nearly three hundred pages of boredom topped only by my disbelief—in everything. It has been a long time since I've read a book, and finished it, and not had anything good to say about it. I'm less than 10 books into 2015, and already I think I have a solid candidate for worst book I've read this year.
My two words still stand: Don't Bother. Read anything else. Read another Palahniuk book. Read a Twilight book. Read Twilight fanfic. But leave this one on the library shelf where it belongs. Don't even think about putting it on hold.


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During your lunch break, why not feed your soul as well as your body? Take some time out of a busy workday to study a bit of Torah over a kosher lunch.
Every other Wednesday, over a delicious bagel lunch, we take one hour to explore relevant Jewish topics using ancient wisdom to guide us in a modern society. The monthly lunch at "Chabad of Finchley, conveniently located near Finchley offices, is guaranteed to be a peaceful break in the midst of a fast-paced work day.
Great food.
Great people.
Great topics.
See you there!
Date: every other Wednesday 1:00-2:00 PM
E: rabbi@chabadfinchley


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Tech for good
The world of tech has a conscience too. We've rounded up a few coders who are giving something back. Here are some of the individuals, organisations and apps striving towards a fairer, more community-minded society…
Fairphone is a social enterprise that makes smartphones, ethically. Based in Amsterdam, the company aims "to develop smartphones that are designed and produced with minimal harm to people and the planet". The idea is to manufacture mobile devices that do not contain 'conflict minerals' (in smartphones that tends to be gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten) whilst also insisting upon fair labour conditions for the workforce along the supply chain producing it. They are also dedicated to the safe recycling of mobile phones and parts, and want to raise awareness on how to extend your phone's life. Read more about their values here.
Buycott is a phone app that lets users scan barcodes when shopping to learn about the product's history and make an informed decision before buying. Created three years ago by LA developer Ivan Pardo, aged 26 at the time, Buycott shows you a corporate family tree, letting you see the complex network of corporate ownership and helping you avoid giving money indirectly to companies that you find objectionable. Users set up an account, choose which campaigns they care about and which companies they wish to blacklist (and which they want to support), and then Buycott alerts you when you're making a purchase.
Room For Tea
This is 'a sociable housing idea' set up four years ago by Milena Bottero when she was 22. It's essentially a social network that connects interns and apprentices who need short-term, affordable housing with an older generation of hosts who want the company. The website has separate tabs for hosts and guests, and offers the double benefit of extra income for those with a spare room, and the opportunity to get involved in unpaid internships that would otherwise be impossible.
SharpFutures is "a social enterprise that supports young people into employment in the creative digital sector". Based in Manchester, the company offers a range of apprenticeships, work experience and volunteering opportunities, to make it easier for young people to enter the world of work, whilst also meeting the ever-changing needs of creative digital businesses at the same time.
For example, SharpFutures' apprentices staff the reception at The Space Project, a purpose built TV production stage complex, as well as providing running services for onsite productions. SharpFutures also hosts monthly meetings for Manchester CoderDojo, a volunteer-led community group for young people learning to code and make things. They meet up at The Sharp Project, a large warehouse that is now an affordable rental space for over 60 digital entrepreneurs and production companies specialising in digital content production, digital media and TV and film production. Encouraging women into tech is also high up on SharpFutures agenda.
Scottish Ethical Finance Hub
In October last year, Scotland became home to the new Scottish Ethical Finance Hub (SEFH), based in Heriot Watt's School of Management and Languages. The SEFH, the first of its kind in Europe, establishes Scotland as a leader in the growing field of ethical finance, and FinTech (finance technology), a sector which generated 17,000 jobs in Edinburgh last year. The hub has emerged after five years of round-table discussions led by the Islamic Finance Council UK (UKIFC), and follows on from the inaugural Global Ethical Finance Forum held in September 2015 in Edinburgh. SEFH will help meet growing demand for socially responsible and stable forms of banking and finance. It will work towards developing rules that organisations can sign up to, as well as principles and behaviours that are considered ethical. The Scottish Government is supporting the SEFH project with up to £50,000 of funding.
This fashion label has a social conscience, and aims to work towards universal access to education. Fikay is run by 24-year-old Aaron Jones, and the lifestyle brand produces fashion accessories using recycled cement bags. As well as making sustainable, upcycled goods, Fikay employs co-operatives and members of fair-trade organisations and, for every purchase made, Fikay donates to educational building projects in south east Asia. Fikay puts profits from the company back to makers around the world and has already helped to build one school in Cambodia.
What Leads To
This is "an award winning platform for people to work together on big social change". It began life as a startup called CauseHub, founded by 15 year-old Jamie Davies. He originally wanted it to be a "youth led social causes hub for youth to start blogging about social causes", but it has since evolved into a tool that can be accessed more widely. What Leads To is a place where activists can work out the best actions to take with the help of their community. It is also designed to help young people feel more engaged with politics and achieve goals, however simple – be it improving the private housing rental sector, or getting better exam results – through forums, discussions and their handy flowcharts.


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Hours of Operation:
Greetings and thank you for your interest in Greenstone Society, a downtown Ann Arbor dispensary! We are currently accepting new members, there is no membership fee to join – and best of all, we offer a free gift for all new patients and caregivers signing up with us for the first time.
We are at 338 S Ashley St in Downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan and our location is very easy to access. We also validate parking in any of the Republic lots (there is one just a few steps away!) Click here to see a map.
Please have a look at our menu to see our selection or give us a call at 734-773-3075 during business hours for additional information, we'd love to hear from you!
Ever wonder how Greenstone Society got it's name? The name "Greenstone" comes from a rare type of stone that exists only in Michigan. It is actually the Michigan state gem and it resembles Jade. These stones are rare and difficult to find – and even illegal to collect in most areas! (sort of like our meds almost a decade ago ?)


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The City Council election in New Britain's Ward 1 is between two incumbent Republicans and two Democratic challengers. Democrats Veronica T. DeLandro and Molly McGuire are taking on Ald. Jamie Giantonio (R-1) and Ald. Wilfredo Pabon (R-1), two of the city's longest-serving Council members.
Ten of the fifteen members of the City Council are elected from five City Council "Wards". Each Ward represents certain neighborhoods of the city. The voters in each Ward elect two Council members to represent them. In each Ward, each voter can vote for two candidates and the top two are elected.
Ward 1 is a district that encompasses the West End neighborhood, the Old West End, the Willow Brook neighborhood and the southernmost part of the city's East Side. Voters in Ward 1, depending on their voting district, vote at the Slade School, at the Vance School or at the VFW Hall. The VFW Hall is replacing New Britain High School as a polling place this year.
Democrats DeLandro and McGuire, two of the six women running for Council seats on the slate of Democratic Mayoral candidate Merrill Gay, are campaigning on issues like quality education and protecting New Britain's watershed.
DeLandro said, "As a Ward 1 resident there are several issues that concern me; increase in taxes, local government spending, expansion of Tilcon and New Britain's water supply. I am opposed to the expansion Tilcon mining running into the city's watershed and feel we must everything we can to protect and defend New Britain's water resources."
McGuire said that, "the issues important to my candidacy are protecting the environment in whatever ways we can, making sure we have quality education in the public schools, and developing New Britain in a responsible way that respects the cultures and people who live in the city."
DeLandro added,"I'm running for office to improve the lines of communication between residents and the city. I feel it's important that all residents in Ward 1 are informed, engaged, and aware of the issues that directly impact them."
DeLandro has served as executive director of two nonprofits, the College Summit, Inc. and the Aurora Women and Girls Foundation Inc. She holds a Masters Degree in of Public Administration from the University of Connecticut and a Bachelor's Degree from Hampton University. She is a past President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Hartford Chapter, is an NAACP member and was a city youth and family services commissioner.
McGuire, works at the New Britain Museum of American Art as an associate in its Visitor Experience department. She also works at Central Connecticut State University's art department as part of the team that curates art shows and exhibits on the campus. She is a 2016 graduate of CCSU.
Editor's Note: City Republicans were asked for candidate profiles on their candidates and did not respond by the publication of this article.


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Starting an Internet Based Business From Home
A great number of people find themselves with a desire to earn their living entirely from their own home. It only makes sense, really. For almost everyone, there's no place more comfortable than a person's home. What a dream it would be to actually earn a decent living in an Internet based business from home! In the following article I'll attempt to share some advice regarding something very important that I have learned over the past seventeen years of running my own Internet based business from home.
When I began my first internet based business from home way back in 1997, one of my biggest surprises, and something which you may actually not want to hear, unfortunately, was just how much I was working. I mean, for the first two years of operating my first internet based business from home, a 10-12 hour week-day was a short day for me. Very often, I'd put in 12 to 16 hours on a weekday, and sometimes as much as 20 hours or more! Crazy, huh? For at least those first two years I put in seven day work weeks. I'm serious! I went about two years without taking a single day off — not one. Although, I did try to keep my Saturday and Sundays light — which meant I would do only work that I deemed was absolutely necessary to get done on those days — stuff I thought just couldn't wait until Monday. This usually meant that I'd put in three to six hours of work on any given Saturday or Sunday.
I was perplexed by this, as, when I was first starting an internet based business from home, I was actually worried about my ability to motivate myself to actually do work in the comfortable and distracting environment of my very own home — what with all of the great potential time-wasters with which I had spent a number of years equipping my lair.
After a while of working such incredibly long hours, I began to get fed-up with it. I didn't have any where near the amount of free time I wanted. And, relationships with friends and family were seriously beginning to suffer. In fact, I had more than a couple of very good friends at the time whom I still, to this day, seldom ever see or hear from anymore. And, it was due to this period of my life, the unbelievably long working hours involved, and my resulting neglect to my personal relationships that was directly responsible for the drifting apart of myself and these good friends. Once people drift apart in such a way, it's very difficult to re-establish relationships. Most relationships form organically, without conscious intent. They occur as fortunate accidents of a sort, and they usually dissolve in similar manner — as unfortunate accidents. And, if it does dissolve in such a way, the fortunate accident which brought the relationship together in the first place is not likely to happen again. Successfully rekindling it will take conscious effort and intentional will, and that sort of thing is not very effective at establishing relationships.
As I said earlier, I was perplexed at the amount of hours I found myself working in my Internet based business from home — seeing as how I had originally been very wary of exactly the opposite happening. At the time, I did have an acquaintance who already had a number of years experience in working from home in his own business — albeit not an Internet based one, but a home business none the less. One day, during conversation, I mentioned to him the long hours I was putting in and my perplexity at having found myself doing so, and how it was actually the opposite of what I had feared.
"I don't want to work such hours," I said. "But, there always seems to be more work that must get done NOW, and I just can't tear myself away. If I do force myself to take a break, I find I can't enjoy anything because my mind is always on the work that I should be doing, and how neglecting it is going to cause a pile-up that I'll have to deal with later."
My friend chuckled, and said, "Dusty, there's two types of people out there: those who shouldn't work from home because they can't get stuff done, and those who shouldn't work from home because they can't stop getting stuff done. It looks like you're the second type. The trick is to train yourself so you fall comfortably in the middle of the two. Very few people, if any, can naturally balance work and rest when they're working from their own home. It's a skill you have to learn and exercise.
You see, some people have a hard time actually getting their butt in gear when they're working from home. There's too many distractions within arms reach. If it's a nice day out, there's nothing stopping you from taking a stroll. If there's something interesting on TV, there's nothing stopping you from saying 'oh, I'll get to that work later, I just don't want to miss this show.' And, they soon find that each day, time has gotten away from them and their work is seriously falling behind.
The other type of person is the opposite of this. There's no pre-designated office break time, lunch hour, or quitting time where everyone gets up and stops working, or heads home for the day. There's nothing to tell them to stop working, so they don't. Finishing up that last bit of work that really should get done doesn't require the person to get into their car and go to the office — instead, it's right there, in the next room. So, instead of having it nagging at them in the back of their mind, they'll just go and do the work that's waiting. Of course, while they're doing that work, there's more new work that's coming down the pike that'll need to be done as well, and before they know it, they're dedicating almost every waking moment to working. The funny thing is, those second type of people almost always seem to think they'd be the first type of people until they're actually in that situation and find out they're not."
My friends words were wise ones that, in my own experience, I've found to be true. Time management is so very important important when running an internet based business from home, and very few people, if any, have a natural ability for it. It's something that most people have to learn — a skill they have to develop. When starting an internet based business from home, it's extremely likely that, after a short while, you'll become dismayed at either how little work, or how much work, you find yourself engaging in. You're either a type-1, or type-2 person that my friend described. Neither type is very good.
You might be thinking that being a type-2 person would be of great help in building a home based business to the point of success. It isn't. Believe me. You might be thinking something like: "Hell! I'd dedicate a few years to non-stop work, make a fortune and THEN ease up and start smelling the roses." I'm sorry, but it won't work. The reason being, of course, that almost nobody can keep up that kind of pace. You'll become burnt out at some point and your business will fail. You must develop the skill of managing your time effectively. In those first two years of running my internet based business from home, I was making very good money — it's true. But, I can tell you, in complete and total honesty, those were the worst two years of my life — without a doubt. I was earning a heck of a lot of money, and I was absolutely miserable. I was tired and burnt out all the time. I was depressed. At the age of just twenty-eight years old I was hospitalized one day with breathing problems, after a day of putting in 20 straight hours of work — which itself followed a day of putting in about 16 straight hours of work, which followed a similar day, which followed a similar day, and so on. I was treated for exhaustion at the hospital. A twenty-eight year old man in otherwise good physical condition and with no underlying health conditions should not be taken by ambulance to a hospital with acute shortness of breath. It was a miserable time. The money was good, yes, but I was too tired, too burnt out, too unhealthy, too overworked to actually enjoy it. And, even if I hadn't been each of those things, I really had no available time in which to enjoy it.
We work to earn money so we can better enjoy life, yes? So, what's the point if you're earning the money but are doing so in such a way that you're entirely unable to enjoy life even though you have the money? There isn't one. No point.
So remember, learning to manage your time is important — and not just so you can get things done, but so you can stop getting things done as well. Too many people go into starting an internet based business from home thinking that they'll have to learn to manage their time so that they wont fall prey to distraction and end up not working enough in order to build a successful business. That's important, no doubt. And, the internet is crammed with writings from home business gurus that will give you such advice. But, what's equally important, if you're one of those second types of people my friend described, is learning to manage your time so you don't work too much.


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JensonUSA is one of the original online bike shops and has been selling complete bikes, bicycle parts and accessories on the internet since 1996. We carry major brands like Shimano, SRAM, Rockshox, Campagnolo to name a few. We also offer industry exclusive closeouts that allows us to heavily discount prices and pass the savings on to our customers. Many items that we stock also come with free shipping.
No coupon codes have been listed for this site. If you find one please submit it (using the form to the right) for other QponCoupon.com users to view.You could also try posting a request from facebook discussion board.


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Vintage Port 40
You are invited to join us on a unique holiday to the stunning Douro Valley Port wine area of northern Portugal, the world's first demarcated wine region (for the production of Port), and to the historic city of Porto itself. Following the Douro upstream, we discover a world of steeply terraced vineyards producing fine wines and ports.
The only way to see this beautiful region is by rail and river (there are few roads in the valley itself). The first half of our tour is based on the river right in the centre of this stunning region and includes several scenic rail trips as well as two half-day river cruises.
We honestly believe that you will not better this holiday for enjoyment and scenery. It is also our longest running tour now in its 19th year.
Your Tour Manager for this trip is David, who lives in Portugal. Should you have any queries about the itinerary or if you wish to have a chat with him about the trip, please feel free to e-mail him on firstname.lastname@example.com.
- No fly option available
- Stunning scenery
- World's first demarcated wine region
- British port wine estates
- Two river trips
- Vintage steam hauled train ride
Thursday 6th September (D) Our flight leaves Gatwick at 14.10. Direct flights also available from Stansted and Manchester and overland travel from St Pancras via the Eurostar. We will be met at Porto airport by David, your tour manager, who will take us to the railway station in central Porto using the modern metro system, from where we catch our train to Regua, and have our first experience of this spectacular line. We stay in the 4-star Hotel Regua Douro, our base for the next 5 nights on the banks of the Douro. Dinner in a local restaurant.
Friday 7th September (B,L) Following a short welcome meeting, we have another chance to see the Douro from the train as we head back west to Paredes. Our coach will be waiting to take us the short distance to the vineyards at Quinta da Aveleda, one of the region's top Vinho Verde estates with its fine gardens. After a guided walk through their gardens, we enjoy our Welcome Lunch in the Quinta. From here we transfer by road to the pretty riverside town of Amarante, one of the gems of northern Portugal. Here rows of 17th-century mansions with their brightly painted balconies line the narrow streets. There will be time to visit the Monastery and other sites during our walk through the town. We return to Regua by train from Livração station, arriving early evening.
Saturday 8th September (B,D) Morning is free to explore Regua. Alternatively join us on an optional visit to Lamego, an attractive town with Renaissance and baroque mansions overlooked by two hills. On one of the hills are the ruins of a 12th century castle, on the other is the monumental baroque Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios. A marvellous granite staircase decorated with tiles, allegorical fountains, small chapels, and statues leads to a baroque church with views over the town. In the afternoon, we join a restored vintage train, formed of five wooden bodied carriages dating from the 1920s – this train is normally hauled by a vintage steam locomotive. We travel up the river through breath-taking scenery of terrace vineyards and olive trees, to the riverside station at Tua (about a 90-minute run). En-route we stop for water at the picturesque riverside town of Pinhão. Use the time here to see the famous tiled pictures, dating from 1938, that decorate the station. Many of the most famous names in port production have quintas (port lodges) close to the railway station which is decorated with dazzling tile panels depicting scenes from bygone days of port production. On board, we are treated to traditional singing and served local delicacies and port wine. After a break, we return on the steam hauled special to Regua. (14.30 – 18.00). In the evening, we visit the wonderful Quinta da Casa Amarela vineyard for a guided tour, port tasting and dinner.
Sunday 9th September (B,L) In the morning we catch the regional train east along the river to the railway's terminus at Pocinho. This is a superb scenic journey with stunning views and we might catch sight of the rare Black Kite which still manages to survive in this remote area of Europe. At Pocinho we join our river cruise and sailing down river we pass through three of the dams built in the 1970s and 1980s to tame this once wild river. One of the locks we pass through is 32 metres deep and is an unforgettable experience. This is a stunning valley of steep terraced vineyards and dramatic rock cliffs. A full three course lunch with wine is served on board and included in your tour price.
Monday 10th September (B) The Tua metre gauge line used to run from Tua station up to Mirandela, and previously all the way to Bragança. Sadly, it closed a few years ago and a dam was constructed at the southern end of the river as part of a huge hydro-electric project, with the line submerged as far as Brunheda. However, we can once again enjoy some of the beautiful Tua Valley scenery, but this time from the comfort of a cruise boat as we sail along this newly created lake. There are plans to run a special train between the charming town of Mirandela and Brunheda station.
Tuesday 11th September (B,L) Late morning we join our river cruise down the river through the picturesque port wine area of steep terraced vineyards which stretch right down to the water's edge. A full 3-course lunch with drinks is served on board before we pass through the famous Carrapatelo dam. At 35 metres deep, this is one of the deepest navigable dams in the world; an experience not to be missed. We continue down river and pass through the smaller Crestuma Dam. We are now in an area of woodlands, small vineyards and river beaches. Late afternoon we arrive in the fine city of Porto and enter this ancient city in the best way possible – on the river, sailing under its famous bridges, including the Maria Pia railway bridge (now closed) and the iconic 2 level Dom Luis I bridge.
Wednesday 12th September (B,D) This morning we join a vintage tram for a trip through the old city to the tramway museum. After time to visit the museum we join another vintage tram along the waterfront finally arriving at Infante. From there we walk through the Ribeira district and over the iconic Dom Luis I bridge to visit one of the riverside port lodges complete with port tasting. Free afternoon. Dinner in the excellent Abadia restaurant.
Thursday 13th September (B) We use the surface metro/tramway to return to the airport for flights to the UK.
Optional Minho add-on
Thursday 13th September (B) Today we head north by rail into the green Minho region. Our first stop is the railway museum at Lousado, dedicated to the metre gauge lines that existed throughout northern Portugal. From there we continue north to the important city of Viana do Castelo. We will explore the historic centre, lined with Manueline, Renaissance and Baroque mansions, and on to the fort, guarding the mouth of the River Lima. A free afternoon to enjoy lunch in one of the many excellent restaurants here. There is also a funicular to whisk you up to the Santa Luzia church with splendid views of the city and coast. Return to Porto at the end of the afternoon.
Friday 14th September (B) We begin our day with a trip by rail to Braga where we ride on the Bom Jesus water-powered funicular. This afternoon our guide will lead us on a walking tour of the UNESCO World Heritage city of Guimarães. Return to Porto by train at the end of the day.
Saturday 15th September (B) Today we head south to the Vouga narrow gauge rail line. After being stored in Regua for many years, the metre-gauge Vintage Train has been brought back into service on the Vouga Line, and today we will take a step back in time to travel on the original rolling stock along this scenic, but often forgotten, line. For so long threatened with closure, it managed to hang on, and is now having a renaissance due to the presence of this train. A visit to Macinhata museum is included.
Sunday 16th September (B) We use the surface metro/tramway to return to the airport for return flights to the UK.
This trip does have a bit of walking, including some hills and steps and two guided walking tours. To enjoy it to the full, you should be comfortable walking 800 – 1,000 metres at a leisurely pace. We will transfer to and from the airport on the light-rail system.